Atomfall

At first glance, Atomfall looks like a British take on Fallout or S.T.A.L.K.E.R., but Rebellion's game manages to put a good emphasis on exploring and investigating, while also having its rough edges, both positive and negative.

As with S.T.A.L.K.E.R., a real-life nuclear disaster forms the basis for the fictional game, which begins five years after the events of the Windscale disaster in northern England in 1957. There is a quarantine zone around the power plant, no one can get in or out. The player character, who unfortunately remains silent during the game, wakes up in a bunker and has no idea what happened or how he got there. The task is to find out what happened, who is responsible and how to get out of the place.

This search for the (predictable) ending is the highlight of the game, because instead of relying on quests and map markers, it uses an investigation system. This means that the player explores the dense environments for clues (letters, items, files) and also collects information in conversations with the more or less bizarre NPCs, depending on the choice of dialog options, which lead to further clues, puzzles and key persons and become more and more condensed - all of this is recorded in the Investigation section, which could be a bit less cluttered. Players can choose what to do, how to do it, and when to do it. This search for clues is a highlight that clearly sets the game apart from other titles, especially since there are many more useful items and crafting ingredients to be found while exploring the world - it's just a shame that the inventory is so small.

Atomfall is especially good when the player encounters the different factions (remnants of elite soldiers, British Atomic Research Division (with retro robots), outlaws or a pagan back-to-nature cult) with competing views and is given different tasks in a rather typical quest manner in order to advance - and this again and again leads to consequences that also lead to the different endings. By the way: At the beginning, players can choose between five difficulty levels, which differ in combat, survival and exploration.

The other highlight is the game world full of Britishness - from lush green locations to rustic villages and inspirations from British folklore, myths and sci-fi such as Day of the Triffids, Doctor Who and The Quatermass Experiment. Generally speaking, the game world consists of four rather small to medium-sized open-world maps with a largely open world connected by an underground system of caves - and at the same time the game is designed to be more compact and shorter than titles like Stalker. However, the game world feels static without the change of day and night, it offers very little visual variety and there is often a lack of life in the world where other games are much more dynamic.

However, there are some concessions to be made in the areas of combat and survival in Atomfall. Survival is limited to health and heart rate, the latter of which increases with action. Weapons, on the other hand, can be made from a variety of things found in the environment. Melee combat is effective but rather limited, as you can basically only hit enemies. Head shots in ranged combat will usually kill an enemy instantly. Ammunition is scarce, but should not be a problem if you scout the area enough. Stealth is also possible, although the AI of the enemies varies between "not noticing anything" and "having eagle eyes everywhere". The character development is also limited to the basics and is rather straightforward. In these areas the game is rather (upper) mediocre - and basically it is more an action-adventure with RPG elements than an action-RPG.

The game was developed by Rebellion and uses their own Asura engine. In recent years, the British company has mainly focused on its shooter games such as Sniper Elite or Zombie Army, but has also repeatedly tried its hand at other genres, such as the villain simulation Evil Genius 2: World Domination (2021), the cooperative third-person shooter Strange Brigade of an adventurer in the 1930s (2018) or the arcade game Battlezone (2016). Founded in 1992 by brothers Jason and Chris Kingsley, the company employs around 560 people. Its sister company, Rebellion Publishing, has been publishing books and comics since 2000.

Atomfall will be released on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S on 27 March 2025. It will be available to PC Game Pass and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscribers at launch. There will also be a Deluxe Edition that includes the Wicked Isle story expansion, an enhanced supply bundle, and three days of advanced access. The physical boxed editions for PS4, PS5 and Xbox consoles are being published by Fireshine Games. Fireshine Games' distributor in Germany is NBG.

Conclusion

Atomfall is an idiosyncratic and somewhat eccentric game with rough edges that thrives on exploration and information gathering, while combat and survival leave room for improvement.

Features

• Inspired by classic British science fiction and folklore
• Non-linear gameplay in a compact, dense world
• Investigation and exploration are key.

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